Destiny - A post from 2015
This is a post I wrote more than 10 years ago for my original website. Posts there were few and far between but I really put a lot of effort into each one. I thought it would be interesting to move this over as it is one of the more relevant posts I wrote
Destiny is an interesting beast. I've spent countless hours chewing on it. I don't know if I like the taste, but I can't help considering playing it again and again. One day I think I really like this game, then the next, I genuinely wonder if I hate it.
The only constant I seem to hold onto is that I did at least have some fun with Bungie's latest effort. I just can't decide how much fun it was.
To give some background on my history with Bungie, you don't have to look too far back. I didn't own an original Xbox, so the Xbox 360 was my first excursion into Microsoft's gaming division, which meant Halo 3 was my first Bungie experience. (I didn't play Oni on PS2 either. Did anyone?)
I've since gone on to play every Halo release, past and present, but I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan around. As a matter of fact, Halo 4 is probably my favourite. Going into Destiny, I think this fact was important. I didn't expect it to be my game of the year or anything. I just hoped it would be as enjoyable as Halo usually is and that it would tell an interesting story, because if Bungie were good at one thing, it was building a universe for players to explore.
I think this might be where my problem with Destiny began.
Ultimately, the game released, and I can't say much about the story or world-building because they're basically non-existent in the final product. There are barely any characters, and those that are there aren't particularly noteworthy.
Now, if Bungie didn't want to tell us a story, if they were happy to focus on gameplay, maps and balancing, then I would be completely okay with that decision. I wouldn't have a problem if I believed that was the game I was buying into at the time.
However, the lead-up to the game's release had us believing that this would have an exciting narrative, or at least a narrative at all.
"Last year, Bungie COO Pete Parsons said Destiny has the potential to surpass the cultural impact of Halo and sit on people's shelves alongside popular works like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Star Wars," and "They're thinking about a Lord of the Rings-sized narrative" were both statements made before release. This is simply untrue when compared to the Destiny we have today.
Here's the reality of my gaming habits: if you make a good game, I will buy it.
Obviously, you need to market to me, but Diablo III, which I think is a fair comparison to the style of game Destiny tries to be, was sold to me as a loot-collecting action game. Destiny is a grinding MMO-lite, loot-farming first-person shooter. It is not a story-focused shooter with RPG elements.
If I had bought the game knowing that, I wouldn't have as much trouble deciding whether I actually like it. It's not the game I wanted, but it does have many qualities.
Halo Reach was Bungie's final foray into the Halo universe. While new faces have continued to develop Microsoft's flagship franchise, Bungie cut ties and became independent. Destiny was published by Activision as part of a ten-year deal involving multiple releases in the franchise.
The assumption is that this means both DLC expansions and future sequels. One interesting aspect of the deal is that Activision does not retain the rights to Destiny when the agreement ends. The series remains Bungie's. Imagine the consequences for Microsoft's holiday lineup if Bungie had been able to walk away with Halo. It raises an interesting question about the future, considering the investment Activision has made.
However, there are aspects of Destiny that I feel very strongly about, both positively and negatively.
The music is simply fantastic. It elevates the game to another level. Marty O'Donnell pulled off the exact same feat in Halo. It really is wonderful and helps disguise the drought of content that I started to feel towards the end of my time with the game.
Secondly, the gameplay is very well designed at its core. The shooting mechanics are excellent. That's one of the few guarantees from Bungie's studio. They have a real pedigree for this genre, and it shows.
I often lament the loot system for removing their ability to create a small array of tightly balanced weaponry. Unfortunately, that's not what this game is trying to be, so I wouldn't list that as a complaint.
If I were to look at Destiny as a purely loot-focused game, I would still have issues with it. It has the structure of an MMO. There are solo quests, three-person strikes and six-person raids. My complaint is simple: there isn't enough of anything.
The solo missions are shallow point A to point B fetch quests with little conversation or motivation in between. The strikes are fun until you hit endgame. By that stage you've played them all and start to realise that "endgame" simply means replaying content repeatedly in the hope that you get some nice loot.
I understand this isn't a subscription-based game, so I'm not expecting the amount of content you'd get from a traditional MMO, but even accepting that, Destiny still feels light on content.
If there wasn't significantly more than planned left on the cutting room floor, then I worry Bungie's approach to content creation simply doesn't fit the type of game they tried to create.
I mentioned the loot system briefly already. An interesting comparison is Borderlands, a game that unapologetically embraces loot addiction. I was never a huge fan of its system because whenever I found a weapon I liked, there was always a better one waiting just around the corner.
It's an odd complaint given how rewarding the game is, but I felt as though it never let me settle into a weapon I genuinely enjoyed. Destiny fixes some of that. You can upgrade weapons, and the flow of loot is much slower. My problem is that I plateaued very quickly.
I don't have a full set of legendary gear. I only have one or two exotics. I've seen screenshots of incredible armour sets and weapons, but the system is so random and rarely rewarding that I never felt owning those items was a realistic possibility.
I don't have 500 hours to grind strikes in the hope of a purple engram dropping, and even when it did, there was no guarantee of receiving a purple item. Even after changes that guaranteed better rewards from higher-tier engrams, my drops mostly remained the unsatisfying blue and green variety.
I've now argued against both ends of the spectrum, so you might wonder if I even like these types of games.
I do. I just want something in between.
I want exciting drops, particularly after boss fights, but I want them carefully spaced out. There's nothing I hate more than staring at the floor in Borderlands mashing the X button. Reward keeps us playing games, but if you reward players too much or too little, excitement fades.
Neither game gets it quite right, in my opinion.
Finally, I'd like to address the raid content. I had significant difficulty finding a team of six to take on the challenge. My early teammates dropped out long before reaching a suitable level, and for a while it seemed like I would never see Atheon. Eventually, I put my username on DestinyLFG, a fan-created website that helps players find groups. It worked, and we somehow assembled a full raid team.
The fact that fans had to create a service to fill a gap Bungie failed to address is rough. I don't like that Bungie didn't provide a similar system through Bungie.net or, preferably, matchmaking for raids.
I completed the raid with a group of strangers. It was a wonderful experience that vastly outperformed the entirety of Destiny's story and strike content. The objectives and unique mechanics found in raids are sorely missing elsewhere in the game.
So what exactly is the harm in letting players attempt raids with random Guardians? At worst, we fail and prove Bungie right. At best, we demonstrate we're more capable than they've given us credit for.
I've been thinking about John Romero's comments regarding the development of Doom. He said they created the first level last because they knew it was the part most people would experience. You lead with your strongest content. Destiny does the opposite.
Its best content is locked behind more than twenty hours of repetition and a requirement that you have five friends available on the same evening. In all honesty, I know one other person who owns a PS4. I know nobody else who owns an Xbox One. How exactly am I supposed to play the raid?
Why were Bungie's brightest minds so focused on creating content that only a small percentage of players would ever experience? It seems outrageous.
I could complain all day, but I could never deny that I enjoyed a lot of my time with the game. It's fun to play. The music makes my heart beat faster. I wish every game would let me break out into an impromptu dance.
If I look at Destiny critically, I think for every positive there are two negatives. The marketing set expectations that the game simply couldn't meet. Normally the gap between expectation and reality is about quality. A game ends up better or worse than expected. With Destiny, the gap was about identity.
This isn't the Mass Effect of first-person shooters that I thought I was buying. It's a stripped-down Halo with less story and more loot drops.
Destiny is one step forward and two steps back, yet I still occasionally feel tempted to slide the disc back into my PS4.
I always resist because I know that for every hour I play, I'll spend two more thinking about it.
I suppose I simply love to hate it.